All posts filed under: PROJECTS

Exterior Before & After

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The inexpensive way to makeover a house, paint. Instead of buying new garage doors, new exterior doors, and replacing the roof, my dad came to visit and got to work. He and Matt replaced the door handles, light fixtures, weather stripping, and painted the interior and exterior sides of the doors, trim, and garage doors. BEFORE AFTER My mom found a sprig similar to the color of the roof and that is how we matched the paint for the doors. We got paint similar to the color of the cedar siding to paint the garage doors. Mixing in some modern style light fixtures and door handles with the rustic exterior made this tiny house look a little more interesting. I am hoping next year I can work on the landscaping. We (mostly Matt) did a lot of clean up. We moved some rocks but nothing major this year. The interior is coming along. Mixing modern, Asian, and traditional styles with the rustic wood walls and finishes. It’s also officially fall, so I am attempting to …

Front Yard Landscaping

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In addition to some updates (removing the window blinds that frame the door, replacing the front porch light and door knob, painting the door and frame and cleaning up the trim), we started using a lawn care service that performs routine seasonal maintenance, which has really helped the grass and hopefully made the mole go away. We also finally finished (for now) the front landscaping. This has been a project we tackled little by little. We moved into this house in the fall of 2018 and the landscaping was not a priority. We have a certain style and prefer a particular kind of landscaping using particular materials and plants. But we did not want to tear everything out, haul it all away, and build it all back. We also did not want to pay for a landscaping company to do it. So I took my mother’s and grandmother’s advice; I lived with it for a while and saw what grew well and decide what I liked. I came to realize that I prefer partial sun/shade …

Half Bathroom Remodel Complete

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It’s done! I just need a soap dispenser and a fancy towel. You may look at this and think, “that looks nice.” So let me remind you what this room looked like before. BEFORE Matt replaced the toilet last year but that was the only update we had done. The room was so dark and dingy. No matter how it was decorated, it was ugly. The cabinets, trim, and countertop had yellowed. It needed a makeover. I quickly recognized that a coat of paint would not be enough. The cabinet had to go too. Each stage of the demo brought a new issue to light. Removing the mirror-wall damage, remove the old sheetrock and replace. Removing the cabinet-more wall damage and bare concrete, repair sheetrock and add six more pieces of tile.  Move the toilet-water damage from old toilet leaks, repair sheetrock. While my Dad was in town he replaced the plumbing in the wall and installed an utility sink in the laundry room (on the other side of the wall). Matt is happy it …